, 1887-05-11
PREPARATION OF A SERMON.
Hints of Value to All Public Speakers.
An Essential Quality.

An Essential Quality.
For twelve years now-though my SER
o have all been published-very few
of them have been written. They are
published from shorthand reports. And
generally no part of them is ever written.
/ am often asked il l write and commit
my sermons to memory. h is some
thing | never did in my life. 1t seems to
me that one who does this is in danger of
appearing as if he were speaking a
piece" And, besides, unless one has a
better verbal memory han l have, it
would be an intolerable drudgery. In
most cases l write nothing, not even n
plan or sketch. 1t bothers me to have
my attention diverted by an effort to re-
member something that has been written
down. l prefer everything on paper or
nothing.
When 1 do write it is done with great
rapidity. And, undoubtedly, writing is
the easier method. For when once it is
on paper all the mental strain and nervous
worry about it are over. Let no man,
then, take up the method of speaking
under the impression that it is easier than
writing. For me, at any rate, 1t is the
method that requires much the greater
amount of hard work. There arc only
two classes of persons who can afford to
speak to an audience without the most
careful and laborious preparation-in-
spired people and fools. 1 do not claim
to belong to the first class, and / try to
keep out of the last. So 1 work very
hard in preparation for public speech.
And / am urged to this by another con-
sideration. l regard it as a species of dis
honesty, savoring of fraud, to claim the
attention of an audience unless one has
lone his best to nave something that is
worthy of their listening. One may not
always succeed, but at least he can try.
My method, then, is first to be sure in
my own mind that l have something to
say that it is important that people should
hear. This conviction is the basis of all
earnestness. / cannot look an audience
in the face without 1t. Here, of course,
l may be mistaken, but I must do my
best. This point is equally pertinent in
the case of any n who offers anything
to the public.) l am more anxious about
a topic than l am a text. l am aware
that many think nothing is a sermon that
has no text. Dut remembering that
Jesus and the Apostles got along without
texts, and that texts are really a modern
invention, 1 do not let this fact disturb
me. l nm always glad Of a text, but l
will not twist Scripture for the sake of
having one, as is often done.
l decide on my subject as early In the
week as possible. Then, without much
worry over the matter, 1 let my mind
play about it at odd moments-in inter
walls of reading, study, parish work or on
the street. 1t acts like a magnet, and
drawsa all sorts of things to itself. The
mind seems to work sub-consciously, and
sometimes the whole scheme will emerge
into consciousness complete and ready.
But | give some definite time to earnest
and hard thought on the subject each day
by preference IN the morning. when !
am freshest.
In thinking it out l pay no attention to
words. But l think out my line of
thought until / AVE it completely in
hand. l a it so that if an earthquake
should come in the middle of the sermon
! could climb up on the ruins after it was
over and continue the sermon at the
point where 1 left off. 1 said | nave u
very poor verbal memory; but if a line of
thought is logical, if one point naturally
follows another, l al remember this and
keep to 1t through an hour or two of
speaking.
In my opinion, the most essential
quality about either writing or speaking
is what l will call movement. If one Is
in dead earnest after some definite end,
and is seen to be in motion for that end,
it is human nature to be interested in see
ing whether he gets there. BIT you get
tired of watching even a gorgeously uni
formed soldier, il he is only marking
time"
My last word, then, to both speaker
and writer, is this: Have some import
ant end in view; take the straightest q. G.,
the most logicaD road that leads I it;
and then go.-M. s. Savage in The
Writer.